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``Given that there's no evidence of any inflationary risk, there's no need to rush,'' Haru, 69, said today in a speech to business executives in Shizuoka city, Japan. ``Gradual adjustments will be needed and will be made based on improvements in the economy and prices.''

Governor Toshihiko Fukui and his policy board colleagues last month held the key overnight lending rate at 0.25 percent in a 6-3 vote, with most members saying they need more evidence prices will keep rising and consumer spending will improve. Fukui described data released since the decision as mixed, as exports and industrial production both surged to records while inflation slowed and household spending fell more than expected.

Meantime he still doesn't seem to have gotten the full picture that this may be an ongoing structural issue with an ageing population, and he continues to hope for a 'turnaround' at some point:

``While the improvement in the household sector has been delayed, it is highly likely conditions will improve going forward,'' Haru said. ``Rising pressure on wages will steadily increase as labor shortages intensify.''

Wages fell 0.6 percent in December, the biggest drop in 16 months, the labor ministry said last month. Salaries increased only 0.2 percent last year, or about 5,500 yen ($45).

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About

Edward 'the bonobo' is a Catalan economist of British extraction based in Barcelona. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

He is currently working on a book with the provisional working title "Population, the Ultimate Non-renewable Resource".

Apart from his participation in A Fistful of Euros, Edward also writes regularly for the demography blog Demography Matters. He also contributes to the Indian Economy blog . His personal weblog is Bonobo Land . Edward's website can be found at EdwardHugh.net.